Loomis

When an attorney cross-examines a witness does he just state his conclusions?

Or does he ask the witness questions?

Loomis

If Jesus worship predates Jesus then why does Christianity require a historical Jesus?

kcdad

I don't see the OT prophesy of crucifixion... can you point that out to me? I am thinking you can find OT references to every possibly way to die, suffer and be separated from God.

Jesus (Greekified)/ Joshua (Englishized) is a very common name in the OT. Y'shua or YSHW, is as common as Lazarus (or eliazar). It was probably written during or immediately after the Babylonian captivity as was most of the OT. ~450 BCE.

I didn't realize this was an adversarial procedure. I thought it was a discussion. (When did anyone get appointed as an advocate for someone else?)

kcdad

You are responding to yourself now...

"If" is a word that changes everything isn't it? If Jesus worship postdates Christ worship, if Paul's letters are REALLY about "The Christ" as a separate entity or concept from Jesus of Nazareth... THAT really changes things.

kcdad

Rieslings, maybe, but no no no... reds, especially taken as a generic category are much BETTER...more flavor, better for you.... no no no, I will not allow you to spout such vino-heresies without proper sources...

aa5874

The HJ is a most SENSELESS proposition.

Some have proposed that Jesus was just a mere apocalyptic preacher without even producing any credible historical source of antiquity that can show that Jesus actually existed in Judea or anywhere in the habitable earth at anytime in the 1st century.

The historicity of Jesus is directly based on feelings, not credible historical sources of antiquity.

It can be shown that it was NOT the character called Jesus that was apocalyptic but it was the inventors themselves, the fabricators of Jesus, the Ghost of God, that were apocalyptic.

It would appear that the fabricators used the Son of God character, as an appeal to the highest authority, to deliver their own personal message or warnings about an impending apocalypse or conflagration which they thought would have happened very very soon.

Examine the Synoptics and Revelations.

Mt 3:2 - Mark 1:15 - Luke 21:31 - And now Revelations.

Revelation 3:11 - It was NOT necessary for Jesus to have actually existed for the author of Revelations to claim that Jesus was coming soon, so likewise it NOT was necessary for Jesus to have existed for the authors of the Synoptics to claim the kingdom of God was at hand.

In the Synoptics, Matthew 24.36, Mark 13.30, and Luke 21.32, the authors claimed through Jesus, the Ghost of God, And again, the inventors of Jesus, the Son of God, wrote these words in Matthew 26.64, Mark 14.61 and Luke 22.69 So, the message from the Synoptics, out of the mouth of the Son of God, is that he will be coming back during shortly, the world as it was known then would be no more.

Mt 24:29 - In the Synoptics, the son of God has delivered his warning to the Jews, his PRIMARY mission has been carried. He has preached the coming of the kingdom of God.

It is time to die, be raised and ascend to heaven to show that he was indeed the son of God.

But, now examine gJohn.

The author of gJohn has virtually nothing about the conflagration. The son of God in gJohn did not say anything about the sun and the moon shall be darkened and the stars would fall from the sky.

Whole chapters are assigned to the conflagration, the tribulation, the apocalypse, in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21, yet hardly a single verse in gJohn can be found about such catastrophic events.

In gJohn, the Son of God did not say that people would see him coming in the clouds of heaven sitting on the right hand of power.

In gJohn, the son of God forgot to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The author of gJohn has abandoned the PRIMARY role of the Son of God to preach about the coming of the Kingdom of heaven. This Jesus has a new role, since there was no conflagration within the generation of the Synoptic Jesus.

The author of John will invent another Jesus and will declare for the first time, " For God so LOVE the world that he gave his only begotten son.....

The Jesus of the Synoptics and the Jesus of gJohn are vastly different, if Jesus did exist and was apocalyptic then gJohn wrote fiction and if Jesus was non-apocalyptic then the Synoptics are works of fiction. Or both the Synoptics and gJohn may all be non-historical accounts.

Chapters 14,15, 16, and 17 of gJohn are a continuous monologue of Jesus with virtually nothing about the conflagration or apocalypse as found in the Synoptics.

The proposal that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher is internally contradicted by the author of gJohn and there is no external credible source of antiquity to support support the Synoptic Jesus.

The HJ is a most SENSELESS proposition since the apocalyptic Jesus is contradicted by the author of gJohn and there is no external historical source to support the Synoptics.

kcdad

How do you know anything Octavian or let's say the first King of Rome, Romulus? Were they deities? Were they "sons of god"? How do we know they existed beyond someone's writing them into books, building statues and archways, and memorials to them?

bacht

These sorts of comparisons don't really work. Romans I think had fuzzy ideas about Romulus as a legendary figure (every city had its patron), but Octavian is clearly attested by friends and enemies.

All we have for Jesus are the testimonies of partisan followers written decades after his alleged existence. If we had something like memoirs from the high priests or Roman archival notices then we might get some corroboration.

kcdad

I don't think that is fair assessment at all. Partisan? The different camps of followers were almost at war with one another, with the Roman Church coming out ahead in the end. And you can not dismiss (of course you can... why not?) "enemy" accounts of the followers of Christ, Chrestus, or whoever... such as Tacitus and Josephus. The Imperial Roman Czar eventually buys into this "fable"... after his predecessors systematically attempted to destroy the "myth".

Sure, Roman documents would be great... how many Roman documents are there about specific British/Celtic enemies? According to Res Gestae Divi Augustus, two British kings, Dumnovellaunus and Tincomarus, fled to Rome as suppliants during his reign,
Is this to be believed BECAUSE it is a Roman document? Or because there are ancient British coins with Dumnovellaunus' name...
I think "The Acts of The Divine Augustus" are as reliable as "The Acts of the Apostles"...

aa5874

So, how do you intend to show that Jesus did exist as a mere human?

How do you know Jesus existed beyond writing him into books?

The NT and Church writings about Jesus are fundamentally implausible or non-historical.

The conception, temptation, the miracles, transfiguration, betrayal, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and deification of Jesus in Judea are either implausible, non-historical or questionable.

It would appear that Jesus only existed in books. It was the inventors of Jesus who used the Son of God character as a supposed authoritative source.

In the Synoptics, the apocalyptic authors used the Son of God character to deliver their doomsday theme of conflagration and destruction, but in gJohn, this writer used the Son of God to deliver a message of Love and Salvation.

Joh 3:16 - oh 3:17 - But in the Synoptics the Son of God character appears to condemn his generation of Jews or "Vipers".

Matthew 23:33 - Mark 9:42 - Mr 6:11 - It would appear that Jesus, the Son of God, was just a literary device used by the authors of the Gospels themselves to propagate either their own apocalyptic or love and salvation themes.